This was a decent enough episode. Serviceable. A solid C. But as usual, I’m left with way too many questions!

We’re left in what’s clearly some alternate universe; likely the classic mirror universe. Yippie skip. It was interesting when TOS did it, and the first time DSN went there, it was cool. But, man, did it get old fast. Enterprise about made it work, though. Maybe this show can, too, but I doubt it.

On the other hand, it was nice seeing our two gay characters kiss, I suppose. There was some emotional payoff there. Too bad Stanmets manages to be both bitchy and catty at the same time, which shouldn’t be possible.

Also, I’m glad that we had a resolution to the whole “Ship of the Dead” nonsense.

So, that’s all that. Now onto the questions.

Is Tyler really a Klingon? All signs point to yes. Notice that everything that he said while talking with Burnham could have been taken as someone talking about sexual abuse and torture, or just someone talking about a radical change in species. I continue to suspect the latter.

I must ask again, why didn’t Starfleet blow up the Ship of the Dead earlier? You know, like when they sent an entire salvage team to go get the telescope from Shenzou. This didn’t make any sense to me when we first learned about it, and it makes even less sense now. The technological value of the ship and its cloak would have been impressive if they could have captured it, but even destroying it would have been good, and would have demoralized the Klingons.

So the admiral is pulling a Pike now. Well, we’re told she’ll make a full recovery, so ok. She’s in a medical shuttle on her way back to somewhere for treatment, which of course begs the question: why didn’t they take her along to Starbase 46? Even at regular warp 5, we learn it would only be a three hour trip. A shuttle is way slower. To be fair, this is a problem throughout Star Trek, but it annoys me even so.

The “not-Gamora” chick. Turns out, from what I read, that she’s human, and has special cybernetic doo-dads. So why do we never, ever, see those again in any version of Trek ever? Yet another problem with the prequel concept.

Oh, yeah. Totes human. Or an especially bitchy-looking robot.

I’m very unclear as to how using the spore drive 133 times enables them to track the Klingon ship, but ok. Whatever. I’m even more unclear as to why everyone treats these cloaking devices like they’re a surprise no one has ever heard of before. Did the entire Federation forget about the Romulan war? No, but I suspect the writers did. Or, more likely, just didn’t care.

Could they have possibly telegraphed harder exactly what was going to happen with that “one last jump” nonsense? I said, out loud, in a room by myself, “Well, he’s dead.” To be fair, he is not dead yet, but he’s likely to be, and we all certainly knew that the last jump was going to be a problem.

Even if Stanmets doesn’t want to do this anymore, why couldn’t literally any other human on the ship? Or any human in Starfleet? I’m sure they’d have no shortage of volunteers.

Thus endeth the questions. I’ll be posting a summary of my views on the first nine episodes as whole later.

Meantime, over on The Orville, we had many a sexy hijink. I must say, I wasn’t terribly in love with this episode. I get what they were going for, and Rob Lowe really hit it out of the park, but especially in our current climate, it just hit me a little wrong. It would have been nice, for example, to have some TNG-style discussion of the ethics involved, or for blob guy to recognize that the doctor was acting out of character and refuse to go through with it. But, well, there you are. I think this is the first Orville episode that I’ll be willing to skip upon re-watching.

]]>https://wilybadger.wordpress.com/2017/11/12/tv-review-star-trek-discovery-s01e09/feed/0Chris SwansonTV Review – Star Trek: Discovery – S01E08https://wilybadger.wordpress.com/2017/11/05/tv-review-star-trek-discovery-s01e08/
https://wilybadger.wordpress.com/2017/11/05/tv-review-star-trek-discovery-s01e08/#respondMon, 06 Nov 2017 02:31:28 +0000http://wilybadger.wordpress.com/?p=14755]]>You know, I just realized that this blog has become a bit limited in scope of late. Perhaps I should resume blogging about politics and the like.

…

Naw, fuck that. Let’s just keep picking on Discovery. It’s way less depressing.

And Lt Tyler is pretty easy on the eyes.

Not a terrible outing this time. We finally got a bit of the “strange new world” stuff that I’ve been aching for. Too bad the world in question was Pandora.

Ok, so what happened with the Admiral there? I assumed that her and L’Rell were staging that fight, but now maybe not? Maybe she’s actually dead? Or more likely she’s just playing dead as part of some weird gambit to give her access to [insert section name here] which will allow her to [insert negative consequence for the Klingon vessel here.

What’s up with Staments? He’s wavering back and forth between aggressive and not, and seemed to think Tilly was a captain. Ugh. He’s seeing possible futures, isn’t he? And he’s probably vacillating between the real Staments and the mirror universe version.

Did no one at any point during this production say, “Hey, maybe we should tone down the references to Avatar here. You know, like maybe not make blue the dominant color?”

Hey, some of our bridge crew got names! Now I don’t have to call them Mohawk Lady and Gamora, or rather, since the names were said and gone fairly quickly, I still do, since I’m not going to look them up anywhere.

So the transporters prevented our heroes from being transported to the spot where the antenna was located, thus making it so that they have to hike 30km. Fine. Dandy. But, what, Discovery’s shuttlecraft are all being serviced right now? Our heroes couldn’t just get into one and fly to the destination? This is the kind of Moffat-level plothole I really dislike.

Less psychopathy from Lorca. That’s a plus. I still don’t get where they’re going with his character, but honestly, I don’t care all that much.

I did rather like the interaction between Tyler and Burnham. The two actors have very good chemistry.

That’s right. I called out Moffat. Ok, so, the Doctor can’t go back to New York City at that particular time because it’s time locked or whatever. Why couldn’t he just go to Boston and take a train? Or Jersey, and take a ferry? Never made any sense to me.

If the whole thing with L’Rell and the Admiral turns out to be a big Batman gambit, I’m going to be very displeased, especially if Tyler gets brought into it.

Meantime, over on Fox, The Orville, aka, TNG with dick jokes, continues to be better Trek, and has been renewed. This last episode wasn’t great, but it was fine, and did a good job of building some character for the ship’s doctor and Isaac. I liked that.

This was an interesting episode. A bit more stand-alone than previous versions. There was a lot of potential here, and some interesting bits with various relationships and the like, so that was nice, at least. Too bad they trotted out the reset button pretty early on, so we have yet to see if any of that character development will actually matter.

Anyhow, on with the questions!

As the caption indicates, Mudd is now a time-looping, homicidal maniac, and would-be traitor to the Federation. So why wasn’t he actually, you know, taken into custody? Why was he just handed over to his wife and her father? And why was he dressed like this?I’m not trying to be clever here. I genuinely don’t understand the treatment of Mudd. There was absolutely zero reason to not hand him over to Federation security, especially since he now has all that information about the spore drive! What’s to stop him from finding the nearest neutral world, going to the Klingon embassy, and cutting them a deal?

Apparently in the future, all the kids will be getting down to music that’s well over two hundred years old.

To give some context, this is like going to a raging party in 2017 and hearing this music:

Fuck yeah! I can twerk to that shit!

There is no sci-fi concept that has more baffling popularity than that of the space whale. How would such a creature survive? How would it move? Reproduce? What would it eat? Would it need water? How would it deal with the extreme variations in temperature? Come to that, wouldn’t beaming it into an environment with any gravity be a problem for it? Not to mention the atmospheric pressure.

Why is Mudd now such a psychopath? Oh, wait, because it fits into the grimdark aspect of this show. Yes, the bleak nihilism needs to infect him as well, I suppose.

So now Stamnets is apparently turning into another Guinan? Whatever.

Yeah, overall, not too impressed. But it could have been worse.

As for The Orville? Well, they took a stupid premise and made it into a manageable episode. It wasn’t great, but it was fine. There were a few cute moments, and overall, yeah, it was fine. Vaguely reminded me of this week’s Red Dwarf where the boys ended up on a ship where criticism was illegal. God, I’d have been dead within the first minute…

So, yeah, I didn’t hate it. I kind of liked it. I’ll give it a solid B-. If nothing else it was nice to be left with fewer, though not zero, “wait, what?” kind of questions. The acting was solid, the pacing was good, and Burnham didn’t come off as a totally unlikable bitch.

But there are a few questions that remain.

Starfleet has a bit of a history of admirals who are, shall we say, problematical. I think this is the first time we’ve seen one banging a subordinate, however. So yet more unprofessional behavior from our characters. Why? What purpose does it serve?

Lorca is a psychopath, it seems. Fine, but in a Federation that includes Betazoids and Vulcans, how is he slipping past everything? Pet theory: this is a mirror universe version of Lorca.

Did no one really notice that Stamnets seems quite high? Ok, there was some slight comment, but he seemed really high. Like, “myconologist who is way too fond of mushrooms” kind of high. I have no idea what was going on there.

So in addition to a mushroom drive that can propel people across the universe at the rate of 90 light years in 1.3 seconds, we also have instantaneous communication? It’s implied here that any mental communication that happens, happens instantaneously. Surely this is something that Starfleet should be researching the Hell out of, since it would be very useful, especially as it doesn’t seem to require much in the way of equipment.

Apparently they now have a work-around that allows the spore drive to be used. Fine, great. But why wasn’t it ever used, or even mentioned, in any subsequent Trek series?

Disco shirts. Not a comment, just an observation. Disco shirts.

And really…that’s about it for this week’s list of questions and confusions. Also, no Orville this week, so nothing to talk about there. So I guess we’re done! See you next week!

This episode was an improvement over previous ones. There were some little moments that I liked, and Rainn Wilson is quite good at playing a character we once saw on the original series. There was also a wonderful little moment of continuity that, at last, canonized the character of Robert April.

But just as I was starting to warm up, along comes the stupid. Here’s my usual spoileriffic list of questions!

First question: why would you allow a prisoner to keep that many rings?

Ok, so there wasn’t quite as much stupid in this episode. But there was some.

Why, in the discussion surrounding the use of Ripper to travel, did no one suggest, “Hey, imagine how much it would suck if we travel somewhere and he dies before we can get back? I mean, can you imagine?” That is, of course, essentially what happens.

Stamnets continues to be an unlikable, unprofessional dick.

And, hey, at least we don’t have to see him and Doctor Cuthbert (or whatever), going through their awkward dating phase: they have a relationship already! Fucking cool!

Oh, yeah. That happens. In Star Trek. You know, a show for the whole family? Yep. Not once, but twice. Ugh.

Also, no, it really isn’t fucking cool. I could do without the only two gay characters we’ve ever seen on Trek being a couple. Why can’t they just be two gay guys who work together?

Then we have the violence. Game of Trek, basically, including a scene where a Klingon woman gets half of her face phasered off. Gratuitous and pointless. I’m far from a prude, but between those scenes and the language, I wouldn’t let any kid under the age of 12 or so anywhere near this. Even then, I might hesitate.

Why did they leave Mudd behind? Yes, he was an asshole, but doesn’t it seem more logical to bring him along so he’s not shouting, and thus alerting guards? At least stun him, maybe. Or given Lorca’s past, kill him to spare him later pain.

Oh, yes, Lorca. Turns out that he’s got A Past. Killed everyone on his starship to spare them the pain of being captured and brutally murdered/tortured by the Klingons. Yay?

Yes, that was technically a question. This is not. Or is it?

Why did they release Ripper at the end? I guess they figured he was done being useful or something. At least we have some idea now of why Voyager didn’t have spore technology.

What was up with that mirror business? Oh, no. Please, no. No, no, no, no, no…

So…it’s now canon that the entire Star Trek universe is a giant mushroom. And how does that make you feel?

I’m still not finding any of the characters likable. Tilly is getting there slowly, but she’s still way too annoying, and has the honor of dropping Trek’s first f-bomb, so I’m not terribly pleased about that.

Orville update. This most recent episode really, genuinely, felt quite a lot like a TNG or maybe even a DSN, episode, and that’s a good thing! Take out the jokes, and you really have a very good, rather serious episode with interesting ethical issues. Also, two guys named Chris and Devon.

EDIT: I just learned that our rescued prisoner is played by the same actor who plays Voq, leader of the Klingons. Oh, no. Please, no. No, no, no, no, no…

]]>https://wilybadger.wordpress.com/2017/10/15/tv-review-star-trek-discovery-s1e5/feed/0Chris Swansonstar-trek-discovery-choose-your-pain-photo006-1507913068637_1280w.jpgmaxresdefaultTV Review – Star Trek Discovery – S01E04https://wilybadger.wordpress.com/2017/10/09/tv-review-star-trek-discovery-s01e04/
https://wilybadger.wordpress.com/2017/10/09/tv-review-star-trek-discovery-s01e04/#respondMon, 09 Oct 2017 23:35:42 +0000http://wilybadger.wordpress.com/?p=14704]]>Ever wonder why I’m not putting titles for these episodes? Because a pretentious title like the ones we’ve seen lately deserves no praise, no accolades, and no recognition.

Oh, well. On with the review. Spoilers ahoy. Etc.

Also, why are transparent monitors a thing? So useless.

I liked this episode better than the previous three. It gets a solid C! So, yes, still pretty bad, but it did have some good things. Michael is slowly becoming more likable (though it’s very much a “ten steps forward, nine steps back” kind of situation), Saru is annoying, but I continue to enjoy the way Doug Jones plays him, and the only two Klingons who have much dialogue in this story can actually speak it at slightly faster than a snail’s pace.

But problems remain, as do questions.

Michael has no reason, at all, to believe that Ripper is a passive, non-violent creature. Every single thing it has done has been violent and aggressive. She’s going with her intuition, or “feelings”; something no scientist, much less a Vulcan trained one, should do.

Gosh, that security guard lady sure had a death wish. I think her demise was designed to show us that the stakes are raised, and that anyone can be killed off. Well, anyone minority and female, at least so far.

Speaking of, should we take any notice of the fact that the only two main character deaths so far have been minority women? I predict now that Michael will die in an act of redemption.

Why did Michael lie to Saru about why she wanted him near the creature? Why not be up front about it? He’s a science officer, after all, surely he’d have come down to see what happens. All her actions did was make her seem like a bitch and further distance her from him for no good reason.

While we’re on that, were those pre-ganglionic fibers, or post-ganglionic nerves?

It’d be nice if the only two gay men we’ve ever seen in Star Trek do not wind up being a couple. But we know they will.

Why did the Discovery destroy three Klingon ships with phasers, and then the rest with explodey sticks after being hit repeatedly? What did this demonstrate? I could kind of understand if they destroyed all but one ship, and let that one go to bear witness to the others, but even then, you don’t really want to advertise a weapon like the one Discovery has.

So to be hip with the kids today, Discovery is a giant fidget spinner?

It’s a mining colony. Mines tend to be deep. Even a mile or two deep just here on Earth. Why aren’t the miners seeking shelter deep within the mines? And, “Wake up, mommy, wake up!” Oh, fucking please.

It’s going to be the telescope, isn’t it?

Ok, so it is indeed the telescope. Which was last seen on the Shenzhou. So Starfleet took the time to send someone over to the ship to pick that up, but didn’t then strip the rest of the ship of tech and resources to prevent the Klingons from getting those things?

And come to that, why leave the ship intact at all? Why wasn’t it set to self-destruct?

Come to that, why has Voq’s ship just been hanging around doing nothing during a major war? It’s implied that it’s the only ship with a cloaking device. Surely the Klingons would want it in battle.

And that makes me also ask, why didn’t the Federation send over a raiding party? Clearly this ship has, at least, some great cultural value to the Klingons. Why not send over a team to capture or destroy it and demoralize the enemy?

The Klingon stuff, it must also be said, is boring. I don’t care about Voq and T’Rell, or whatever her name is, and their budding romance. I really don’t care about it in Klingon, by which I mean to say, jISaHbe’. Kudos to the production team for trying the whole “let’s have them speak Klingon” thing, but it is distracting and isn’t really working. They’d be far better off taking approach used by The Hunt For Red October, where we have our characters speaking a different language, the camera pans, and now we’re hearing English. Simple!

This traveling via spores thing is really, really fucking stupid.

Meantime, while this series has been spinning its wheels in an endless show of “meh”, The Orville has turned out to be some of the best Trek in ages. The most recent episode had everything you’d want in a good TNG story, plus dick jokes! I really do recommend checking out the series. It’s great fun!

Yes, I’d held out hope that somehow the third episode would be better than the first two. That once we got to see the “real” crew and characters, we’d get something better, interesting, and, indeed, watchable.

We did not. Spoilers ahoy!

At least the outfit’s color is correct!

As with last time, I’m just going to write up a laundry list.

Apparently in The Future, military prisoners and civilian prisoners are housed together, because that makes sense. Yes, people who violated civilian law are put into the same prisons as those who violated military law.

Also apparently graduation from Starfleet Academy requires the completion of advanced courses on being an unprofessional, unlikable dick.

Seriously. The security officer is extremely rude to the prisoners under her care (something normal prison guard-types are not), Lt Gaylord Gaypants (more on him in a bit), is rude and unprofessional toward Burnham, and no one really acts like they have any business being on a starship.

Tribbles. Those are a thing. Because why not.

Lt Gaylord Gaypants, our first gay character. In case you aren’t sure if he’s gay, don’t worry; the fact that he acts like a stereotype out of a nineties sitcom will inform you.

Speaking of nineties TV, it’s good to see that Alley McBeal is making a comeback as a Starfleet Cadet.

Wait, why did they blow up the Glenn? It’s implied that Starfleet is already stretched for resources. Why not salvage it?

Why were the civilian prisoners brought into the mess hall? Wouldn’t you just put them into the brig for holding until they were sent away? That would prevent the “necessity” of killing them, which the show absolutely implies is what happened.

That monster thing was fucking gigantic. How could it possibly follow Burnham through the Jeffries tubes?

How can a phaser rifle be powerful enough to cut through steel but not powerful enough to kill a rampaging creature?

So 90 light years in 1.3 seconds using the magical travel ability of spores! Given that Voyager didn’t have access to that technology, we can assume it’s going to fail dramatically somehow.

Also, Romulus? Sure, why the fuck not. You don’t know what the species themselves look like yet, but I guess you do know what the planet looks like, so why not go for it, because that’s logical.

Were there good things? Sure. For example:

Amanda was mentioned.

…oh, that’s it.

I don’t know what the hell this show is, but it really isn’t Star Trek. None of these characters behave like Starfleet officers. Not even one. There isn’t any “strange new worlds, etc”. The fact that this is a prequel continues to be irritating because of all the continuity issues it brings up.

I wanted to wait until we actually saw the actual characters and crew that we’re going to be stuck with for the rest of the season. I wanted to give this show a chance past the pilot. I’m very sorry that I did, but maybe I should be happy; I now know not to waste any more time trying to watch this godawful show.

I love Star Trek. Back when I was a kid, I grew up watching TOS. I know I saw Star Wars in the theater in 1977 (or maybe during the re-release in 1978), but I don’t remember those. I DO remember seeing The Motion Picture in early 1980.

Whenever I had a birthday party, my mom would rent a VCR (yes, that was a thing), and we’d rent video tapes to go along with it. If I wasn’t watching the David Warner trifecta (Tron, Time After Time and Time Bandits), I was watching The Wrath of Khan. Great movie.

I really began to embrace Trek with The Voyage Home, and then along came TNG. Excited? Oh, yes. And I quite enjoyed the show. I fell in love with Deep Space Nine, occasionally liked Voyager, and watched Enterprise, which of itself puts me in rare company.

The less said about Star Trek Into Darkness, the better, but the other two movies were very good in their own way, if full of occasional unnecessary stupidity.

So when Discovery was announced, I was very excited! A new Trek series! Strange new worlds, new life, new civilizations, and best of all, an optimistic future that runs counter to the fucking nonsense we get in most sci-fi these days. And, hey, Bryan Fuller, who makes some very good TV, was involved, and so was Nicholas Meyer! What could be better?

Then the bad news began to trickle in. It wasn’t going to air on TV, but rather on a streaming service. And not one that I was already paying for; it was going to stream only on the CBS app which has literally no other shows that I want to see that I can’t get elsewhere. It got worse when the dreaded “word” “prequel” came along. Even worse still when we learned it was set only ten years before TOS.

None of this filled me with confidence, nor did the trailers. Gone was any sense of exploration. Of those strange, new worlds. Instead we had action, action, action! Wall-to-wall action! Nothing great or grand or anything concerning the human adventure. No, we got explosions, and an aesthetic feel like the new movies. What we didn’t get was anyone boldly going anywhere.

But ok, fine, trailers have to have that crap in them, I suppose. Otherwise how will you get the kids to watch? So I tabled my reservations as best as I could, but doubt kept creeping in, and the more I saw, like the other trailers, and the more that I learned about the way the show was being promoted, such as the review embargo, which is never a good sign, the more doubt accumulated.

Today I have seen it.

I did not like it.

There are things to like, yes. The SFX are sensational, there’s some good acting, and the one character we learn anything about who doesn’t subsequently die is fairly interesting. And…that’s really it. That’s all that I can say that’s positive. Great production values, good acting, and one good character.

Oh, and the opening credits were neat.

But then there’s everything else. I don’t really want to type up anything terribly coherent, so here’s just a list of questions and observations.

Why is this a prequel? Why not set it 30 years after TNG? Or 300 years? Why put it ten years before TOS? That limits the stories you can tell without violating continuity, but clearly that’s not a concern because…

Having decided to do a prequel, why do it this way? Say what you like about the Abrams Trek, and there is certainly much to say, but at least the overall “look” is fairly consistent with TOS. Primary color uniforms, a brightly-lit bridge. Excellent. But in this series, only ten years before TOS, mind you, everything is dark and muted.

Why change the look of the Klingons again? This serves no purpose! And what the hell are those outfits they’re wearing? Also, what’s up with those ships? They do not look even remotely Klingon.

Hologram communications technology, eh? Yeah, that’s a thing here. Why didn’t they have that in TOS? Or TNG? They did in DS9, but even then it required special equipment. You see the nonsense questions that come up with prequels?

Radiation doesn’t work that way! There’s no timer ticking away where one second you’ll be fine, and the next, doomed beyond recovery!

Oh, a species that can sense death coming, eh? How does that work exactly? What science is there to explain this? I can (barely) tolerate telepathy in this universe, but now we have a species that can only see into the future in one very specific way? Yeah, that’s reasonable, I guess. I mean, the universe for this show also includes Q, so what the fuck.

Did no one pay the electric bill on the Shenzou? Why is the bridge so dark?

Wait, so killing T’kwanda (or whatever the guy’s name was), would make him a martyr, so let’s capture him instead. Fine and logical, and the right thing to do. So…why attack his ship, and then shoot him in the back?

Also, speaking of attacks, Starfleet attacks other ships during a cease fire?

Why is Michael…actually, before I do anything else, why the fuck is she named Michael? Not Michelle, not Michaela, but Michael?! Ok, let’s remove gender from the name. Fine. Let me know as soon as we have a male character on the series named Mary.

Ok, now…why is Michael the adopted daughter of Sarek, and therefore sister to Spock? Why has this never come up before? “Oh, hey, you have a secret half-brother you never told us about and an adopted human sister? Well done, Spock.” On that note, where’s Amanda during her childhood? Surely having a human woman around would have been of some benefit.

Seriously, did no one pay the fucking electric bill? What the hell was up with that tribunal? Three people with their faces in shadow in a poorly-lit room? What’s up with that? Where was Michael’s lawyer? Where was the prosecutor, come to that? A court recorder? Where was all the navy trappings? We know what a court marital looks like in Star Trek, and it doesn’t look like that. Hell, even Klingon court-pits have better lighting schemes. Even the Cardassians gave the defendant a lawyer!

As near as I can tell, none of the series regulars really appeared in this two-part story. Hell, the titular ship didn’t even show up!

And the greatest sin of all…the worst thing about this…why is it so fucking boring?! Not just a lack of “strange new worlds, new life, new civilizations”, but also a lack of entertainment! You know that scene in Citizen Kane where Joseph Cotton’s character is so bored watching an opera that he starts tearing his program? God, I wish I’d had a program to entertain me with.

I have said to some people recently that I wouldn’t pay for the streaming CBS service because, come on, I already pay for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Sling, and Britbox. But I added as well that I would buy the series if it were available for purchase.

I am now glad it is not. I would have wasted my money.

When this comes out on Netflix, I’ll watch the remaining episodes. Maybe. But until then, count me out.

Final rating: 2/5 stars, or to put it another way, a D.

]]>https://wilybadger.wordpress.com/2017/09/24/tv-review-star-trek-discovery-episodes-1-01-and-1-02/feed/1Chris Swanson07348d854de8d54c6ce9098218c0ff7f8ad4b57aMakin’ Chili with Badgerhttps://wilybadger.wordpress.com/2017/02/21/makin-chili-with-badger/
https://wilybadger.wordpress.com/2017/02/21/makin-chili-with-badger/#commentsWed, 22 Feb 2017 03:03:22 +0000http://wilybadger.wordpress.com/?p=14585]]>I had a special request from someone who wanted me to post up my recipe for delicious chili! So here it is. Enjoy! Or don’t. But I hope you do! If you want. Anyhow, here it is.

(here is where there would be a picture, but apparently I’ve never photographed my chili process! I have pictures of the last split pea and ham soup I made, but no chili. So here’s what you get instead)

This makes a considerable amount of chili. The numbers may be halved for a more reasonable experience. Also, feel free to play with the spices until you find a mix you like. I find this mix tends to be hot enough to get attention, but not so hot that it overwhelms the flavor.